Lesson 1: What are Dark Arts?

Destrey traipsed into the Defence classroom, indecently happy to be teaching at Hogwarts.  She'd never dreamed she would actually get this job and it made her wonder if her brother had anything to do with it.  Then again, she couldn't imagine Monroe would want her anywhere near children.  Perhaps someone just had very bad judgement.  Wizards weren't exactly renowned for their good choices.

"Hi everyone!" she greeted the class brightly.

They seemed a dull lot.  Probably bored of learning about kappas and red hats.  She didn't blame them.

"I'm Professor Ashcroft," she paused, to savour how put out her parents, who had actual science degrees, would be if they'd heard those words.

"And we're going to start our first lesson by having a discussion about the Dark Arts.  I mean, the subject is called Defence Against the Dark Arts, so we should know what we're defending ourselves against, right?  Can anyone help me out here?" she asked.

"If we get through this quickly, I might show you a cool spell to make someone sneeze their eyeballs out through their nose."

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Okay, you know the drill.

Posts should be 100 - 300 words.
Interact with SOMETHING in each post. Doesn't have to be a person, if you knock something over or mess up a spell, that's cool too.
Use separate accounts for posting.
If you start posting back-to-back with someone a lot, take it to a new thread (you can link to it if you like)

Hmmmm. Defence Against the Dark Arts seemed like a good class to Calixta. Her parents had urged her to take it seriously, even if she didn't agree with everything that was taught, because it was well known to be a difficult subject.

At first, the professor seemed cool. Laid back, relaxed and like she knew what she was talking about. But then, she threw out that question.

Calixta was dumbfounded. The Dark Arts were... evil. They were all the evil spells, weren't they? But the way the professor had asked made her think that any answer as easy as that was probably not the right one. This had to be a trick.

She looked around the room to see if anyone else had their hands up. Hopefully, if someone older answered first, it would give her a hint.

In a last minute decision Bertie had decided to continue defense against the dark arts to NEWT level. It wasn't something he had been forced to do, there were other subjects he could have picked, heck he had already chosen four he didn't need to select a fifth subject but, when his head of house had been making timetables at breakfast he'd caught a glimpse of Isadora Malfoy-Nott.

Isadora was dangerous, she was something that Bertie had managed to move on from, shed the memory of her darkness that he'd witnessed to the point that he was numb from it. In spite of that, Isadora Malfoy-Nott reminded him that there were still dark forces out there, biding their time perhaps? The Ravenclaw didn't aspire to become an auror or get involved in any action at all but, were he to accidentally find himself in such a situation again, he ought to be prepared.

And so, without having bought books for his upcoming year of defense against the dark arts Bertie Nogard found himself sat two rows from the front of the class, a freshly inked quill in hand.

Professor Ashcroft raised a simple lesson objective: A discussion. A part from Bertie was usually the student who kept his head down and his quill scratching. It was easier to think things through in his own head, allow the knowledge and discussion to digest themselves in a way that made sense to him. Discussion were never his thing, but after his pact to putting himself out there this year and breaking the shell he decided to answer.

'Professor, the dark arts is something you can't really prepare against.' How ironic. The only reason he'd decided to continue the subject was to he was prepared and here he was citing a book he'd read that went against his reasoning for studying the subject.

'They're sort of a mystery, abstract, not your typical kind of magic. I guess that's why they call it an art...' His voice trailed off as he looked down in thought about what exactly art was. It was peculiar, really, how the word 'art' could be applied to anything.  It romanticized things. Dark magic was evil, the Christ of a putrid sky, yet change it's name to the dark arts and suddenly it's intriguing, beautifully twisted.


(ooc: sorry if this is a little long, it's about 340 words)

Dakota walked into the class room, her red hair flowing down her back as she had straightened it that morning. She sat by a boy who was speaking and listened to his answer. She couldnt help but giggle. Dakota loved the dark arts. It fascinated her how magic could be both beautiful and deadly. She didnt say anything for fear of making a foll of herself. She just took out her quill and parchment and ink bottle and began taking notes. She looked over at the boy and gave him a small smiled and then returned her attention to the lesson at hand

Hmmm.  Just one reply.  Either these kids were outstandingly well behaved or they'd had some really strict teachers in the past.  

It was a pity, she'd been looking forward to exercising her new Professor Powers.  Now, she might have to lull them into a false sense of security instead.

She cocked her head and pinned eyes on the Ravenclaw.

"Insightful," she said.  "You'd all do well to bear in mind what Bluebird here has just said."

"However, Bluebird, what you're describing is called martial magic."

A piece of chalk picked itself up behind Destrey and began writing on the board.

"Martial magic is magic that can be used aggressively, but it's defined only by how the spells are used," she explained.  "A partial transfiguration could be considered a type of martial magic, if you chose to use it that way."

"Dark Magic, on the other hand, has a distinct definition.  They are specific spells designed to cause harm and that can't be used in any other way."

"The worst of them, the Unforgivables, actually require you to enjoy hurting your victims," she went on.  "Do you all understand the difference?"

"And considering they say a good offence is often the best defence, what do you think that says about Martial Magic as opposed to the Dark Arts?"

Okay, since this lesson has had no replies in two weeks, we'll consider it finished.

The next lesson will be posted next week.